L’Anamorphose Chromatique
**The Chromatic Anamorphosis**
Anamorphosis is a reversible distortion of an image, usually achieved using an optical instrument placed near the subject or by viewing the canvas from a particular angle. Thus, the hidden image takes shape as our gaze moves.
Common in 17th and 18th-century painting, anamorphosis has undergone a long and prolific evolution, starting from art and contributing to many technical and aesthetic innovations in fields such as architecture, audiovisuals, cartography, and more.
In China, there were anamorphoses during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), where a deliberately distorted image regained its appearance using a cylindrical mirror. The instrument thus becomes a decipherer of forms. In Europe, Leonardo da Vinci's two anamorphic drawings depicting a face and an eye, the perspectives of Pietro Della Francesca, and of course, "The Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein, now preserved in the National Gallery in London, are noteworthy.
More recently, artists like Dali and more contemporary ones like Felice Varini have experimented with anamorphosis. Carlos Cruz-Diez, through his "Physiochromies" composed of painted metal slats, creates chromatic variations and shines that captivate the gaze.
Robert Schaberl creates a new strong form: Chromatic Anamorphosis. While traditional anamorphoses primarily play with volumes and shape distortions, the chromatic anamorphosis focuses on colors and depth. Through a combinatory superposition of colors, up to 70 layers, and using a novel technique of circular painting, the artist creates very subtle effects of chromatic variations. The metamorphosis occurs on the surface, then in depth, not in relief or distortion of the subject. It is not deformed but transformed under our moving gaze. The color applied to the canvas gains volume through its variations and questions our perspective through the illusion of a monochrome painting that becomes polychrome.
As we move in front of the static canvas, the circular form becomes like a counterpart, a peaceful eye that follows our movement and simultaneously observes us and gives us something to see. Each color variation is a different gaze that captures our attention.
Appearances become deceptive; one color can hide others. The reality we observe becomes relative; it distorts under our gaze absorbed by a swirling form. The unarmed eyes can no longer fix the materiality of the image, which becomes multiple. They are relegated to a simple role of detection serving our senses and perceptions. Abstraction does not just appear; it speaks to us through colors and their variations.
The work reminds us not to trust appearances and to take the time to explore everything from different angles.
Like silence that speaks volumes, sometimes the simplest forms conceal the most complex works. The moving, almost living image and the absence of a subject disconcert and captivate us at the same time. In the face of this variable abstraction, the subject becomes our gaze and, by extension, ourselves. The work then becomes the mirror of our thoughts and emotions...
© Text Nazim Kadri, Paris 2012